Occupational aspirations of adolescents as a result of gender-specific differential parental treatment within families

With the focus on gender inequalities within families, we examine the influence of supportive parenting on the socio-economic status of the desired occupation of adolescents. On the basis of theories and findings of gender-specific socialization research, we examine whether the effect of supportive parenting differs between the four gender-specific parent-child dyads and what consequences a differential parental treatment of siblings has. We examine these topics with the youth dataset of the German Socio-Economic Panel (2001-2013). Using multivariate regression models, we find that in particular the support of the father is relevant for the development of the occupational aspirations. A stronger support from the father, as compared to the mother, has a positive influence especially for young men, whereas women have higher occupational aspirations when both parents provide equal support. With sibling-fixed-effects models, we show that the effect of differential parental treatment of siblings is particular relevant for same-sex siblings.